Meet Sprintz

Hey Everyone, this is Sprintz. Sprintz is the official mascot of Sprinterz Studio. He's the guy sitting up there on the head banner. You will be seeing him around now and again. He may even star in his own series, an idea I am working on. We will see somewhere in the near future.

The Rise

In 2006 I was offered my first illustration job to produce a book cover for an author by the name of Chantal Ellen. The name of the book is The Rise: Where Neighbors Are Sometimes More. A special shout out to my Uncle Dominique who referred me to her. Good looking out Uncle D. So here are the sketches I did when I got started. The author kind of wanted figures without faces in front of some buildings on the cover to represent the characters of her book. This kind of thing has been done before with other books so I was free to try out new ideas. I wasn't sure what to do, so I thought it would be fresh to add lips, beards, and mustaches to some of the characters. I loved the idea, but unfortunately it was decided to be left out. Perhaps I will use that idea for another illustration. Now I lost the final sketch to this, but I ended up with two finals for the author. One mostly colored with vector shapes.......


and another rendered with a bit of texture. The rendered one was the one selected to be published.


I read the book and it's really good. It's like what the author said, "it will leave you feeling good". It kind of reminded me of some of my favorite old romantic comedies like Lovejones, but that's my own personal opinion. NBC in Washington reported that critics say it's like Sex and the City but in Washington. You can view the interview with the author here. Overall I enjoyed it very much, and I recommend those interested to give it a read. You can get a copy of it @amazon.com link
Enjoy.

Is Traditional Airbrush Really Dead?

So in my freshman year at F.I.T, it was required to take a traditional airbrush painting class, which is no longer a requirement because it's been said that airbrush is a dying or dead medium. Photoshop can pretty much replicate the medium now so there aren't a lot of artist out there still working in airbrush. Most people I know sold their airbushes but I kept mine. I don't think I'll ever use it professionally but I would like to experiment with it some more, that is if I ever have the time. Honestly, the last time I saw airbrushing was on tee-shirts at Jamaica Av in Queens and that was awhile ago. Who's to say if those guys are even still there. Anyway I did this with black airbrush ink on bond paper, much easier and cleaner than acrylic to work with. Since acrylic tends to clog the device if not used and cleaned properly.

About Sprinterz

Hey All! Welcome to Sprinterz Studio Blog. A lot of the art work you may see here will probably be sketches and work in progress projects. Some finished pieces will be present as well, but I kinda wanna save that for the Sprinterz Studio Website, which is currently being built and will probably be on-line sometime in the late spring or early summer if not sooner.
My art work here will display a lot of my favorite existing character drawings along with my own character creations. I like art work that tells a story, I think art and story telling go hand to hand with one another. So in the future you will see illustrations of that nature for I will have some stories to tell. I also admire art that have some form of meaning, one that makes you think and maybe even inspire. So I will try my best to portray that. Now some of you may be wondering why Sprinterz Studio? Why name an art studio "sprinterz"? Well, using sprinters is just a fun theme for me to present my work, that is basically it. However, there is a back story to how this came to be. In my High School days and early college years I was a sprinter on the track team, and man, I loved it. But being on a track team took time away from my art, so this being my career I had to make an important decision to focus more on art. Though sprinting is still in me, it inspired me to create this theme. I rarely train now but perhaps I will hit the track once more for just one more race. Enjoy!